Leave Some Leaves for Winter Habitat Protection
The vast majority of butterflies and moths don’t migrate! Instead, they overwinter in the landscape as an egg, caterpillar, chrysalis, or adult, and use leaf litter for winter cover. For example, luna moths and swallowtail butterflies disguise their cocoons and chrysalises as dried leaves, blending in with the “real” leaves. (Photo: Sebastian Alejandro Echeverri)
If you are old enough to remember the autumn ritual of burning leaves, you might also remember “ash” cans, the heavy duty metal cans that held the remnants of leaf ash and embers after the huge pile on the curb had been jumped in, raked up, jumped in again, and … finally, burned. Most jurisdictions no longer allow leaf burning given concerns for air quality. Now, instead of burning, we rake and bag or vacuum up every last piece of leaf “litter”.
That “litter” is not trash! To an invertebrate and other animals, it’s gold! The desiccated leaves we are so eager to rid from our lawns host an amazing array of insects and other invertebrates. Critters such as toads, salamanders, songbirds, and mammals use leaf litter for winter habitat, food, and nesting material. You can often see birds picking through leaf litter in mid-winter for food.
Access to good nesting and wintering locations is one of the most important factors that influences the next year’s population of bees, fireflies, and other beneficial insects. Yet, today’s landscape aesthetic almost demands that we remove every leaf from the lawn, robbing wildlife of habitat, birds of a source of sustenance, and ourselves of a healthy diversity of pollinators for the next spring and summer.
Can we change that aesthetic to leave some leaves and sustain the critters that we love? Leaving some leaves doesn’t mean that we need to let leaves remain where they fall. They can be raked into garden beds, spread around the base of a tree, put into a border at the back of your yard, or raked into a bed of ground cover such as pachysandra or English ivy…no one will see them there and you will be protecting an array of life for the next year!
A perfect way to increase the
population of fireflies and other
charismatic and beneficial insects:
Rake leaves under a shrub. Wet them down if you’re worried about them blowing away. Or put up a small fence to contain some leaves. Proudly display a sign letting neighbors know that Leaving the Leaves plays an important role in the ecosystem!
Many families in Franklin Park and Forest have been including native plants in their gardens to benefit pollinators and increase biodiversity. Now, those pollinators need a place to hide-out for the winter, and Mother Nature’s solution is leaf litter! Insects lay eggs in the leaf piles and feed on and under the leaf layer. Leaves are a natural habitat for butterflies, salamanders, chipmunks, box turtles, toads, shrews, earthworms and others.
So…leave some leaves! Then look for pollinators in the spring and enjoy more fireflies next summer!
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